Boats unlikely to reach shore, says Ruddock

Adrift ... the boat in the Indonesian port of Banjarmasin. Photo: Banjarmasin Post

The likelihood that two ramshackle boats carrying Vietnamese asylum seekers would reach Australia was "fairly remote", the Immigration Minister, Philip Ruddock, said yesterday.

However, Vietnamese groups in Australia have disputed his claim that the passengers are simply seeking to unite with other family members here.

They say this new wave of Vietnamese boat people is more likely to be dissidents fleeing religious or political persecution than queue jumpers. The perilous high seas journey would only be attempted if they feared for their lives, the president of the NSW Chapter of the Vietnamese Community in Australia, Dr Tien Nguyen, said.

"I know what it is like to be on the high seas in a flimsy boat, it's terrifying. It's more likely to be that they are political refugees. Unless you are absolutely desperate you wouldn't come."

On April 30 it will be 28 years since the fall of Saigon and the beginning of Communist rule which triggered a wave of boat arrivals that only subsided during the late 1980s.");document.write("

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Mr Ruddock said one of the vessels - believed to be carrying 31 people - was "standing idle" near Singapore after an engine breakdown. "So unless some further steps are taken to make it seaworthy it doesn't look like it's going much further," he said.

However, there were unconfirmed reports late yesterday that the boat had left its moorings and headed for the open sea.

A second boat carrying 42 people is currently travelling through Indonesian waters.

The Federal Government has warned if either vessel reached international waters it would either turn the boats around or transport asylum seekers to offshore detention centres on Christmas Island, Nauru or Manus Island.

The Opposition said the existence of the boats indicated Australia had not done enough work with the Indonesian Government to find a solution on people smuggling.

Three Australian ministers -Mr Ruddock, the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, and Customs Minister, Senator Chris Ellison - are due in Indonesia next week for a people smuggling conference in Bali.

Australia's Vietnamese community points to the recent arrest of human rights campaigner, Dr Dan Que Nguyen, and the execution of three dissidents from the ethnic minority the Montagnards as evidence of a fresh crackdown on political dissent in Vietnam.

"The three dissidents had their eyes cut out and they were buried head first with their feet protruding out of the ground," said Mr Trung Doan, federal president of the VCA.

While the economic benefits of new foreign investment had trickled down to the peasant class, political reform had been slower to take hold.